Aztecs
E
  • Expansion
  • Aztecs Used merchants of allies
  • No market economy
  • triubute payments form subordinate people consisting of slaves food and sacreficial victims
S
  • 10,000 migrants who migrated to the shores of Lake Toltecs
  • Aztecs used as mercanares of allies
  • warriors
  • Slaves from conqured regions
  • -Pochteca: Special merchant class which specialized in long distance trade
  • governed by council head
  • building block of Aztec society
  • Class of Nobility: latter over shadowed by military
  • you are born into your social class
  • social division known by physically in appearance such as clothing and hair and also mentally on a educational level
  • conflict between nobility and commoners
  • Women
-peasant-helped infeilds
-known for household place
-Marrage between 2 lineage
- girls must be a virgin at young age of marraige
-could inhabit inheritance and heirs
-men still dominant
P
  • Imperial state
  • used political anarchy after fall of Toltecs “to penetrate the area of sedemtary agriculture peoples”
  • City states along central valley of Mexico

- competing powers
-shifting of alliances* active role in regional politics

- had independent power* led buy superream ruler closest to the gods
  • each city state ruled by speaker chosen of nobility
  • System
-prime minister
-governing council
-chief advisor
I
  • Have ideas but ??
R
  • offerings of human sacrefices to the gods
  • cult
  • Part of Mesoamerrican system
  • 128 major dieties male and female

-each had 5 aspects associated with 1 cardinal directions and the center * gods supported by yearly festivals and sacreffices
  • Three major themes

Fertility and agriucultrual cycle: Tlalco -god of rain and god and godesses of water maize and fertility
  • Creator Dities

-gods and godeses who brought the world together
- Huitcilopoohtl- sun god* depended on mythology to explain aspects of life
I
Have ideas but ???
T
  • Chinampas- Beds with aquatic weeds, mud, and earth placed in rows then rooted to the floor

-helped spread watter to all plants * Metates-stone boards used to grind corn by hand
The Aztecs at first glance would be seen as savage and uncivilized, however, with their no economy and increases and decreases in population due to incoming migrants and sacrifices, they still kept a common order. There would be a supreme ruler and with that would follow his court, consisting of advisors, the military, his family line and the priests. Religion was very important to those of the Aztec tribe seeing as it was used to describe the the changes and findings of life that to them could not be describe due to lack of cultural and intellectual knowledge and contact with other regions. Their furthest forms of social interactions could consist of expansion through conquest which helped confirm power. The division seen throughout the civilization was clearly evident through clothing, hair styles, education, and domestic livings. Although power was set in place and basic rituals and procedures had been created it did not mean that their were those who completely agreed to the methods used, which explains the social uprisings between the nobility and the people, along with the internal governmental issues concerning the military uprising. This of course showed the weak structure within their system and how it lead to it's decline as similar to many others.